Many products for sale to the general public are commonly supported and displayed at the point of purchase on free-standing racks placed in prominent locations for maximum visibility and easy access to the product. Graphics are commonly applied to the racks to enhance visual attraction to the displayed product. These racks must be of sturdy construction to support the weight of the displayed product and to withstand the rigors of use in a retail environment. Accordingly, conventional racks of this type are typically constructed from permanent display materials such as wood, metal, and/or plastics. These displays are fairly costly to manufacture and ship, making them expensive to purchase and to deploy through direct store delivery (DSD) systems. If they are shipped unassembled, substantial labor and the use of tools is generally required to erect them at the point of purchase. Further, they are not easily recyclable and are never or rarely recycled, ending up instead in landfills.
The practice of displaying goods in the containers used to ship them has become more popular, particular with the advent of large warehouse style stores and supermarkets. These dual purpose shipping and display containers typically are made of paper materials such as corrugated paperboard and many of them are designed to be supported directly on the retail floor.
Those display containers that are designed to be supported directly on the retail floor preferably are free standing. One such free standing display container comprises an elongate, relatively narrow tower fitted at its lower end in a pocket in an outwardly flared pyramid shaped base to help stabilize the tower in an upright position. A display tower of this type currently is used in store aisles to hold certain products for a temporary period of time. However, corrugated materials can change in nature and strength if the fluting becomes stressed, which would then change the original fit of the display in the base that is needed for stability. Thus, the pyramid shaped base, over time, becomes loose due to movement or consumer handling. Accordingly, it has been observed that some displays either lean or are fastened to other objects to prevent them from tipping over. This poses a challenge of how to attach the display to the base and still maintain stability without having to fasten the display to other objects.
Further, the previous display tower is filled with product and placed in an outer shipping container for shipment to a retail establishment. The shipping container must be sized to accommodate the pyramid shaped base. Since the base is laterally larger than the rest of the display tower, a void space is created around the entire bottom shelf area of the display, which then requires fillers to stabilize the unit during shipping. This leads to increased cost.
It would be desirable to have a shipping and display container with an enlarged base for providing stable support to the container on a retail floor, wherein the base can be folded into a compact position for shipping, thereby eliminating the need for fillers, and unfolded into an expanded position at the retail establishment.